


The Enemy of My Enemy

by didoandis



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Handwavey Magical Abilities, Hurt Jaskier | Dandelion, I'm British so's my spelling, Imprisonment, Jaskier | Dandelion Whump, Light Bondage, Multi, Not Beta Read, Post-Episode: s01e08 Much More, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-13 10:55:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28527345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/didoandis/pseuds/didoandis
Summary: The soldiers half support, half carry her stumbling across the camp to one of the carts, iron wheels sunk in the mud. A rope is tied firmly round the shaft; it snakes down and ends in a knot around some poor sod’s neck, the man curled in around himself, facing away. One of the soldiers takes the rope tied to her shackles and lashes it to the wheel. The other kicks the poor sod in the side, apparently for fun. He moans, turns, uncurls. Yennefer sees brown hair, blue eyes. She sighs.“Oh come on! Wasn’t the torture torture enough?” Jaskier demands.When Yennefer’s captured after Sodden she has to take the help that she can get. Even if it does come from Geralt’s ridiculous bard.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Comments: 46
Kudos: 407





	The Enemy of My Enemy

There is heat, and burning, burning pain. And then blackness.

Sounds come through slowly. “… Her… yes… I’m fucking _telling_ you!” She feels like she’s on fire. Her body is rocking. It makes her feel sick. She rocks with it over the edge into nothing again. 

Sunlight and darkness and the continual sway of motion, whispered voices, fear and dread and hatred. She moves from moment to moment, trapped in her own broken body, senseless, thoughtless. Almost, for once, at peace. 

Icy water rouses her, dousing the flames in her vision. She swallows what she can manage, shakes her head to loose the drops for more. Her wet hair cools her fevered skin.

“Yennefer,” someone singsongs at her. “Yenn-e-fer…” 

She blinks, looks up into Fringilla’s smug expression. Has just enough energy to jacknife up, striking forehead to nose. Fringilla staggers back. 

Hands clasp at Yennefer’s shoulders, force her from the bier she’s been lying on to kneel at Fringilla’s feet. They’re in the middle of a clearing, in the middle of a ragtag group of soldiers who look like they’ve been to hell and back. _Her. She did that._

She takes stock, wavering on her knees. Her wrists are held in shackles of dimeritium, draining what little chaos she has left. Her clothes are tattered, dirty with blood and ash and mud. She has lived decades but never felt as aged as she does now. She doesn’t much like the feeling. 

Fringilla looks immaculate, the cow. Yennefer glares. “How do you like the idea of Eternal Flame now?” she taunts. 

“I have orders to keep you alive,” Fringilla says, hiding her anger behind a mask of politeness as she always does. “Otherwise you’d already be burning.” 

“You were always big on talk,” Yennefer says. “I saw how you used up those poor mages you suckered into service. Can’t even do your own dirty work.” 

“I’m so looking forward to killing you,” Fringilla tells her, tone still genteel, like they’re taking tea together. “Get her out of my sight, or I might do it sooner than the Emperor commands.” She nods at the soldiers behind her. One of them ties a rope to her shackles, then uses it to pull her up and haul her away. 

They’ve set up a temporary camp: just Fringilla, a dozen or so soldiers, a couple of carts. The party seems to have been separated from the main body of the army, or what’s left of it. Sent scouting on the battlefield perhaps. Looking for her. They have a hand-to-mouth air, they must still be fleeing. 

If she weren’t drained, she could take them all down without breaking a sweat. As it is… time to watch, learn, assess their weaknesses. 

The soldiers half support, half carry her stumbling across the camp to one of the carts, its iron wheels sunk in the mud. A rope is tied firmly round the shaft; it snakes down and ends in a knot around some poor sod’s neck, the man curled in around himself, facing away. One of the soldiers takes the rope binding her and lashes it to a wheel. The other kicks the poor sod in the side, apparently for fun. He moans, turns, uncurls. Yennefer sees brown hair, blue eyes. She sighs. 

“Oh come on! Wasn’t the torture torture enough?” Jaskier demands. His voice is hoarse, his clothes as torn and ruined as her own. Bruises cover his flesh. When he rubs at his eyes, his fingers leave bloody lines. 

“Bard,” Yennefer says.

“Witch,” Jaskier says.

“Wait, you know each other?” the soldier says. 

“Unfortunately,” Jaskier sighs. Yennefer smirks at him and sits cross-legged, leaning against one of the cart’s wheels. The ground is wet beneath her, seeping into her dress. She does her best to ignore it. She’ll be out of here soon enough. She’ll find a way.

The soldier scratches his head and retreats, keeping watch on them from a distance. Jaskier shuffles so he can lean against a tree. He looks terrible: pale and gaunt, rope burns around his neck where his leash has rubbed. He has his mouth pursed, probably thinking to ignore her, like she would care if he stayed silent. 

Night falls. The soldiers stay away: no food, no water, no fire. There’s a chill wind beating at the trees and she starts to shiver. 

“For fuck’s sake,” Jaskier mutters. She can barely make him out in the darkness. “It’s drier over here. Come on.” 

The stubbornness that is her life’s blood resists. But it would be tactical. She moves on hands and knees, still weak, winding up half collapsed against him. He swears and slings a tentative arm around her, bringing her in close. “You’re freezing…” 

She shrugs. It’s a little warmer, under the shelter of the tree, pressed against someone else. “What are the odds of Geralt finding you?” she asks, only slightly resentful. 

“Given that I’ve not seen him since the mountain, slim,” Jaskier tells her. “Which I keep telling them, but since they nabbed me hoping he’d come for me or I’d lead them to him, they’re being stubborn about believing me.” 

She nods into his shoulder, accepting the truth of it, bitter though it tastes. “So no hope of a rescue, then.” 

“Unlikely, I’d say. And I’m guessing if you were able to use your magic you wouldn’t be here right now.” 

“You guess correctly,” she says. 

“Well, this is a conundrum and no mistake,” he says, with a small glimmer of humour. “We’ll have to work together to get free.” 

“We’re doomed,” Yennefer sighs, and feels the curve of his smile against her head. She closes her eyes. Just for a brief rest. She needs to plan. 

But the next thing she knows there’s birdsong and Jaskier humming along with it absentmindedly. The sun is starting to rise, weak yellow shafts of light falling over the camp, the slumped soldiers, what must be Fringilla’s tent. 

Jaskier has been picking at the rope around his neck, she sees, but it’s too well tied; it’s just made his ragged fingertips worse. He bristles when she rolls her eyes at him. “You have a better idea? How did they manage to catch you, anyway?”

“I set fire to the majority of their army and held Sodden Pass,” Yennefer says. “I wasn’t at my best afterwards.” 

Jaskier gapes at her a moment or two. Then mutters, “All right, there’s no need to be a show off.” 

“How long have they had you?” she asks.

“A week or so, I think. I lost track… hard to focus when burly men keep hitting you.” He shifts away from her and stands, moving as far away as the rope will let him to relieve himself in the woods. When he comes back, he extends a hand to help her up too. “They think Geralt is somewhere nearby, partly because I was, partly because of the girl they’ve been looking for. They keep going round in circles hoping he’ll show up.” He smiles, still fond, despite everything Geralt’s done to him. “He went back to save his child surprise, at least. Good for him. I thought he’d leave it too late and then agonise over it for years in his usual fashion…” 

Yennefer wonders if she and Jaskier will be added to the list of Geralt’s regrets instead. In the morning light he looks worse than he did the night before. She can’t see how he’ll be much help to her. She needs to get out of these shackles; she has no patience with the idea of Geralt mourning her, laying claim to her dead the way he did to her living.

On the other side of the clearing, Fringilla emerges from her tent. She must have the keys, Yennefer thinks. She’d hardly entrust them to anyone else. 

“She’s new,” Jaskier says, watching her pick her way across the muddy ground towards them. “Friend of yours?”

“We were at school together,” Yennefer says, frowning a little at how pleased with herself Fringilla looks. “She’s a cow.” 

That startles him into a laugh, which wipes some of the smugness from Fringilla’s face; clearly she was hoping to find them both trembling. “I hope you had a pleasant night,” she calls unpleasantly. 

“I’ve had worse,” Jaskier calls back. “There was this one time Geralt was on the track of a nest of drowners; three days we spent in that bog. My clothes were all over green slime, they never recovered.” He edges away from Yennefer, increasing the space between them. 

Fringilla cocks her head to one side. “The soldiers told me you never ceased yapping,” she says. “I see we’ll have to work harder to shut you up.” 

“I thought you wanted me to talk,” Jaskier complains. “Make your mind up. Also, if we’re on the subject of accommodation, I’d consider it a kindness if you’d tie me up somewhere away from _this_ bitch.”

Yennefer blinks, stung despite herself. Fringilla strides forward, her face icy. “Don’t test me, bard,” she says. “That pretty little pretence won’t play.” 

Jaskier’s halfway through opening his mouth again – the man really doesn’t know when to quit – when Fringilla gestures sharply and he falls like a puppet with its strings cut, landing in the mud, hands clutching his head, choking on a scream he can’t even release. 

Understanding filters through, at last. Yennefer lifts her shackled hands to comb through her hair and lets her face fall into a sneer. “ _Really_ , Fringilla?” she drawls. “What am I supposed to do – beg?” She pitches her voice high and pleading. “Oh, please, don’t hurt the irritating human…” 

On the floor, Jaskier’s body twists in agony. Yennefer meets Fringilla’s eyes coolly and raises an eyebrow, waiting. 

After another few seconds Fringilla scowls and lets the spell go. She turns away, snapping instructions: pack up, get moving. The soldiers jump into life, and Yennefer risks looking down just as Jaskier gets on to his hands and knees and throws up into the mud. “Well!” he says brightly, wiping his mouth, “I’d rather not do that again.” 

“We can’t let her play us off against each other,” Yennefer says. 

“Yes, thank you, I’d gathered that,” Jaskier responds, his voice a little cracked. “Still, it’s not as if we have to hide our true feelings.” He gets unsteadily to his feet and leans against the shaft of the wagon. “I’m sure you’d delight in dancing on my grave.”

“That would suggest I care at all whether you live or die,” Yennefer points out. The bard winces. 

“There’s quite a queue of people claiming to be disinterested in my fate,” he says. “Please, feel free to join it.” He bows, a courtly gesture entirely out of place in their current surroundings, and turns away. 

A certain suspicion dawns. “Why _did_ you and Geralt part company?” she asks sweetly, and is met with a glare. It does a good job of covering up the hurt in his eyes, but not a perfect one. He doesn’t answer, and for the moment she decides not to press. 

After a while the soldiers finish breaking down the camp. They hitch a mule to the wagon and start it moving, forcing them both to follow behind it. Fortunately it never goes faster than a slow walking pace, but it also rarely stops. It’s been a long time since Yennefer walked a great distance without magic to soothe her aches and blisters, especially when she can’t remember when she last ate or drank. Beside her, Jaskier walks steadily, his grim silence the only sign of the pain he must be in. 

When the sun is at its zenith they pause, taking the chance to rest on a slightly less damp grassy verge. One of the soldiers grudgingly hands them a waterskin and a hunk of bread. Jaskier drinks deep and passes it over to her; as Fringilla draws near she hesitates, scowling.

“I’m not diseased,” Jaskier snaps. 

“Oh, Yennefer here was raised in a pigsty,” Fringilla says lightly. “I’m sure she’s put worse things in her mouth. The witcher’s cock, for example.” 

Yennefer drinks, wiping the back of her mouth with her hand. “Darling, jealousy is very unbecoming.” 

“Who could possibly want to couple with a beast?” Fringilla’s face twists in disgust. 

“Well _he_ would, for one,” Yennefer says cheerily, gesturing at Jaskier. 

“I’ve sucked Geralt’s cock very happily for years,” the bard agrees, though Yennefer can see his grin doesn’t quite reach his eyes. Damn if she isn’t hitting all his sore spots, one after the other; but what else is she to do? She doesn’t know why Geralt and Jaskier parted after the mountain, and they can’t risk Fringilla thinking either of them gives a shit about the other. Not that she does, of course, but if he died Geralt would be upset; and she only wants Geralt to be upset because of something _she’s_ done. 

Fringilla raises an eyebrow and extends her arm, brushing her fingers briefly over Jaskier’s bowed head. He jolts, and she retreats, smirking. “I thought you were joking,” she says to Yennefer, “but you’re right. He’s been letting the witcher fuck him for years. He truly hates _you_.” 

“What did I tell you?” Yennefer says, shrugging. “Not that he can compete with me,” she adds, twisting the knife, while Jaskier folds his head on to his knees and breathes, rasping and slow. It’s been a long time since they trained her in mental shielding, back at Aretuza, but she remembers the feeling of another mind meddling in her own, oily and foul. 

After Fringilla stalks away, clearly disgusted with them both, Jaskier gags, spits. Yennefer passes him the waterskin back. “Fuck,” he says. “It’s like… it’s like a blight, like poison.” 

“It passes,” Yennefer says, as close as she gets to kindness. 

They are made to start walking again. The day drags on in silence; as dusk falls they find a farmhouse, set back from the road and abandoned for some time if the cobwebs are anything to go by. The soldiers swarm into the house, and Yennefer and Jaskier are dumped in the stable among moldering bales of hay, Jaskier’s leash tied round a post, a guard stationed outside. Still, it’s better than another night in the open. 

Once they are alone in the gathering darkness she reaches into the heart of her, where her chaos should lie fierce and defiant, and finds only embers. It’s not just the dimeritium. She’s burned herself out, somehow, and has no idea if she’ll ever be able to rekindle the spark. 

“Still no magic?” Jaskier asks, and she glares, caught out. He waves a hand. “There’s a look you get, when you’re trying,” he explains, pulling a face that is equal parts concentrated and constipated. “It’s not hard to spot.”

She’s surprised, but she shouldn’t be, on reflection. For all he careens through life, he’s able to move easily between court and tavern and _Geralt_ ; he must know how to read a room even if he mostly also ignores it. “I want it back,” she snaps. “I want to make them pay for daring to hold me.” 

“And the gods forbid the great Yennefer of Vengerberg doesn’t get what she wants,” Jaskier huffs, and starts weaving three strands of hay together into a braid. The light is dimming and she can just barely make out the pattern of his movements. 

“Well, what do _you_ want, bard?” Yennefer snaps. 

Those clever hands still for a moment as he thinks about it, then return to their unhurried braiding. “I’d like my lute back,” he says. “I’d like to see Geralt again, see if he’s got his head out of his arse yet. I’d like to write a song that outlives me.” His voice is low, contemplative. “I’d like to not be in quite so much pain,” he finishes, ruefully. 

“Those aren’t things you can just get,” Yennefer says. 

“True,” Jaskier agrees. He laughs a little. “When I was younger I had grander ambitions: I was going to change the world, be the most famous bard on the Continent, destroy my rivals… But they were all about other people, you know? Now I prefer things I can at least work towards. Otherwise you’re just setting yourself up for failure.” 

“I don’t fail,” Yennefer objects, though she can hear Borch’s voice smugly telling her that she will. “I won’t let anyone make choices for me. Is that so hard to understand?”

Jaskier’s voice is quiet. She can’t see him at all anymore. “No,” he says, “but all I ever did with my life was choose Geralt, and you see where that got me.” 

Yennefer waves a hand through the air, tired of his self-pity. “Let’s not argue,” she says. “We need to work together after all.” 

“The enemy of my enemy, and so on?” Jaskier asks, yawning. “I’m game if you are.” 

“I’m not your enemy, bard,” she says. 

“Then I’ll call you my friend,” he says; she can _feel_ his smirk. If she had her magic, she’d – she’d – well, she’s not sure what she’d do, but she is tempted to shake him all the same. He must know it, because he stays silent after that.

Eventually, she sleeps. When she wakes up it’s light. Her head is killing her, her eyes ache. The light seems hazy. One of the soldiers has dropped another skin of water and a few meagre sticks of dried meat on the damp earth. Jaskier is lying next to her, too close, almost embracing her, and Yennefer twists her lip and moves away before he stirs. 

“Yennefer,” he says, when he opens his eyes and sees her on the other side of the stable, “are you all right?”

“I’m fine, bard,” she snaps. “And if I’m not, it’s none of your concern.” 

“Fine,” he snaps back, his face going cold. “See if I care.” 

He does. She can tell. He’s so _human_ , following Geralt all those years, worrying about her now, as if anything he does counts at all.

But then, apart from Sodden, what has she ever done that meant something? 

She closes her eyes again and wraps her arms around herself, trying to ward off the pain and the chill alone. It doesn’t work particularly well. 

They don’t move that day. What no one tells you, Yennefer thinks, is how _boring_ it is to be a prisoner. Hours of sitting, or walking small paces the length of your cell, only your thoughts for company. She does not much enjoy her thoughts: her mind still feels muddled, the loss of her magic leaving her slow. The worst of it is knowing that, realistically, she cannot break out of this, cannot bend Fringilla and the soldiers to her will. Or perhaps, no, the worst of it is that if Geralt were to suddenly appear, racing to the rescue the way he likes to do, she would be nothing but grateful. 

Her sigh is loud, heavy; it catches Jaskier’s attention where he’s lying on the hay and humming to himself. “Usually Geralt turns up before things get quite this bad,” he murmurs, his thoughts clearly running on a similar track. “I probably ought to blame you for that, but really, Geralt is his own worst enemy, isn’t he?”

“What do you mean?” 

“Oh, you know,” Jaskier says. “He cares for people, he always wants to help and be liked in return, but _also_ , because he’s a witcher and an idiot he thinks he doesn’t deserve it and shouldn’t want it. It must be very confusing for the poor man, to be constantly pushing people away and then regretting it and then telling himself it’s only what he deserves anyway.” He waves a bruised hand in the air. “Of course I just ignored all his nonsense and refused to be driven off and eventually he took that for granted, the arse, so I thought I’d leave him for a bit after the dragon hunt to show him there are consequences for all that _bullshit_.”

“Unfortunate that the consequences fell on you rather than him,” Yennefer says drily. 

“It is a bit,” Jaskier says. He laughs. “I went looking for him, when I thought he might have learned his lesson, but I suppose he’d already gone to Cintra by then. I don’t know why I’m telling you any of this. Filling up the time, I suppose… And maybe because I want you to understand that the reason I resent you so much is because you completely bypassed his whole self-loathing loop. He just _loved_ you.”

Yennefer stares at him. He’s looking straight up, she can’t really make out his expression. She doesn’t owe him an answer, doesn’t owe him anything at all, and yet she, too, is bored, and Geralt is the only thing they have in common. And perhaps she wants someone to understand as well. She says, “Because it wasn’t real. His last wish tied us together. To save my life, he said, and maybe he even believes it, but what he believes doesn’t matter: he made a choice, and I have to live with it.” 

The bard is silent for a long time. “That makes sense,” he says eventually. “If he thought he was bound to love you, he could just do it, without having to agonise over it. I wonder if he’ll feel the same way about Cirilla, now he’s gone to find her at last.” 

“It’s not _real_ ,” Yennefer insists; from the way Jaskier shrugs she can see that he, at least, believes it is. And he knows Geralt better than she does. But all that means is that the wish is working on Geralt as well as her; that both of them have been blinded by it. Still, she considers it, and then stops when what Jaskier said catches up with her. “Wait. Did you say Cirilla?”

Jaskier sits up and looks at her. “Did you not know his child surprise was the Cintran crown princess?” 

A laugh startles out of her, rich and fond. “Oh, Geralt,” she says. “That could only happen to him.” 

“I know, right?” Jaskier says, matching her fondness with a grin of his own, and for a moment their exasperated good feeling for the witcher hangs in the air between them, before Yennefer catches herself and turns to glare out at the world beyond the barn. 

Not long after, Jaskier is hauled off; he returns hours later trembling and mute. No doubt Fringilla has been pawing through his head again, trying to learn something about Geralt that the beatings didn’t shake loose. From the scowl she wears when she storms to the stables later that day, Yennefer assumes that he had no useful information to take. 

The sun is setting and two soldiers accompany her in, one holding a lit torch, the other a sword, though it rests idly in his hand. Fringilla is taut, furious: clearly building up to something. Nothing good. Yennefer meets Jaskier’s eyes, reads anxiety and a kind of stubborn bravery battling for the upper hand. 

Fringilla paces a few steps up and down the stable, long dress trailing over hay and dirt. The wood of the wall Yennefer’s leaning against is damp and uncomfortable and she pushes back against it, grounds herself. Her hands are weighed down by the shackles; clenched into fists as she tries and fails again to call power to her. In the cold corner by the door where they dropped him, Jaskier draws his knees up to his chest, as if that will help protect him. 

“One of you must know where the fucking witcher is!” Fringilla cries at last. Jaskier flinches, but his fingers are moving in little twitches, pulling rope slowly into his lap, winding it up neatly. At first Yennefer thinks it’s just nerves, but as she watches she realises – the other end isn’t tethered to anything. They forgot to tie him up again when they brought him back. They haven’t bothered with her at all, trusting to the shackles, the guards, the mage. 

_They could run_. Admittedly, Fringilla and the dozen soldiers could bring them down without breaking a sweat, so it’s not a brilliant idea, but it’s also better than sitting around waiting for slaughter. If she has no control over anything else, she can decide how she chooses to die. She meets Jaskier’s eyes and raises an eyebrow, sees determination cross his face. 

“We don’t know anything,” Yennefer drawls. “Geralt could be miles away and I’d have no way of telling.” 

“No?” Fringilla asks, rounding on her, face twisted into an ugly snarl that turns her beauty monstrous. “Not even with that wish binding you together?”

Shocked, Yennefer turns to glare at Jaskier, who looks blank and confused. “I told you that in _confidence_ , bard,” she hisses. “Should have expected you to spill your guts.” 

“I—” he says, “Yennefer, I didn’t—” but she’s on her feet, furious; she knows it’s not his fault and yet he is _right there_ and she is so angry—

Fringilla watches with a supercilious grin on her face and almost without thinking Yennefer turns, grabs her by the neck and thrusts her head against the wall hard enough for the wood to vibrate. With a soft sigh and a crumple of grey silk, Fringilla falls. 

For a moment no one moves. 

And then Jaskier lets out a muted, ludicrous war cry and leaps on to the nearest soldier, wrapping the rope around his neck to choke him. The soldier drops to his knees and lets go of the torch he’s holding as he scrabbles to free himself. It rolls into the hay and flame starts licking through the dry straw, red and gold and deadly. The soldier with the sword stands briefly still, torn between going to the rescue of his fellow or his mistress, and in that period of indecision Yennefer brings her raised, shackled hands down hard on the back of his head and he falls too. 

“Jaskier,” she calls, choking on the smoke starting to pour from the hay, “come on!” 

He lets his victim go, casting around wildly for a new threat; then his face clears, his gritted teeth unclench. They duck outside the stables together. Nearby, the horses haltered on the other side of the barn begin to scream as the smell and sound of fire reaches them. The soldiers will tend to them, to their comrades, first; it’s the only chance they have. She runs through the snow, Jaskier limping as fast as he can next to her, the coil of rope still heavy in his hands. Hers are still shackled, making it hard to keep her balance on the uneven ground. 

They reach the cover of the trees, but she’s already flagging; beside her, Jaskier pants, each inhalation pain-tinged. They can’t last. The soldiers will catch up with them easily. And then Fringilla will— Well. Yennefer doesn’t much like to think what she will do; she’d much rather die in the snow than give her old classmate the pleasure of ending her. 

They move all the same, in no direction in particular, the only noises the distant fire, and men shouting, and their own gasping breath pouring out clouds for them to run through. It’s so cold; Yennefer can feel her thoughts drifting further from her with every tremor of her flesh. Jaskier comes closer, slings an arm around her shoulders – she hears him swear as it pulls on bruised and cracked ribs – his body shockingly warm against hers and yet miles away. 

She wishes for heat; for safety; and feels something light up inside. “This way,” she gasps, turning to her left, and Jaskier lets her lead. The forest swallows up sound, but the soldiers must be on their way by now, easily tracing the disturbance of their slow passage. They have no chance. And yet – the light inside her brightens, and then Jaskier laughs, a cut-off note of pure joy, and she sees a matching light in the distance. A campfire, burning in the woods. 

The bard pulls her with him; each of her steps sliding as her spirit pours into the light, showing her the way. A shadow rises by the fire to greet them, wary, sword in hand; she sees long hair silhouetted, the glow of golden eyes. 

Perhaps she should be surprised, she thinks, as she goes to her knees in the snow. But she isn’t. Of course it’s Geralt. Why not? 

Jaskier collapses next to her, and then Geralt is crouching before her, his face stupid with shock. “What—” he starts to say, before Jaskier interrupts:

“Hands. No time—” The bard makes a half-hearted gesture, his head lolling on her shoulder. Geralt looks down, sees the shackles. He growls and reaches for them, tearing them apart as if they were made of paper not metal. 

“Can you portal?” he asks urgently, chafing her freezing fingers in his. He looks as though he’s listening to something; perhaps the soldiers drawing near. She almost cries, or laughs, because no, she can’t; her well of chaos is still run dry. They’re doomed, and have brought doom on Geralt too. Only fitting, perhaps, that it’s his turn to be hurt by them. 

But then. A smaller figure in a dark blue cloak is standing at Geralt’s back, like his shadow. A girl, clearly, and yet Yennefer sees beyond her human shape to the storm inside her, the tempest raging. Pure power, unchecked. 

Yennefer holds out her hand. “Child,” she says, and the child, uncertainly, comes towards her. Their fingers touch.

It’s like a torrent, surging through her, filling up the dry places with a flood of chaos: water to Yennefer’s fire, but no less potent for that. This is a downpour, a whirlpool, a river bursting its banks and washing everything away in its path. 

“Where,” she gasps, clinging to consciousness as the power builds, needing an outlet. Geralt grasps her hand to show her his sanctuary, a tall austere keep high in the mountains, and as easy as opening a door Yennefer opens the way. 

Geralt half carries her, fainting, through the portal; the girl follows, Jaskier leaning heavily on her shoulder. The torrent in her blood ceases. They are elsewhere; adrift in a high bank of snow; grey stone ahead of them. The sky is white with whirls of snowflakes, like blank spots on her vision which grow and divide until she sees nothing at all. 

The first thing she notices is that, for the first time in what seems like many weeks, she is both warm and dry. There is linen against her skin, the smell of a wood fire burning, a faintly chill breeze on her skin. She’s lying curled up on a hard, vaguely uncomfortable mattress, and yet compared to the straw of the stable it feels like the height of luxury. 

Someone is breathing, not far away. She rolls over, and then feels the weight on her wrists. 

_No._

She sits bolt upright, eyes burning in the light, and stares at the bands of metal shining dully around her wrists, each padlocked shut. They’re not connected – more like bracelets than shackles – but with the same deadening effect. Her heart pounds as she hisses, strikes them hard against each other, as if that might help. 

“I’m sorry,” Jaskier says, and she turns round to unleash her fury on him, fury that they were not saved, that they did not escape, that everything after the stable was some desperate dream. 

But the room they’re in, while far from grand, is neat and clean; a fire burns in the hearth and a barred window shows a light blue sky. Jaskier is resting on a pallet nearer the door, less pale than she saw him last, though his eyes are still shadowed. Bandages peek out above his shirt collar, two of his fingers are splinted, and the rope marks around his neck shine with some ointment or other. He seems relaxed, if not happy. 

She gets up, pulling the blanket from the bed to wrap around her, tucking her feet into the slippers that lie by the bed: rabbit fur and leather. The door, when she reaches it, is solid oak, with a heavy iron latch and keyhole. It doesn’t open. She turns and leans back against it, holding her breath in check, refusing to panic, converting all emotion into anger. 

“I’m sorry,” Jaskier says again. “It probably won’t help to know that I told them to do it.” He nods at her wrists, at the dimeritium weighing her down. 

“Is this some kind of fucking joke?” Yennefer snarls. “Were you so keen to trade one jail for another?” 

“We can’t be trusted,” Jaskier says, voice small, miserable. “I mean, maybe it was luck. Maybe we’re the luckiest people who ever lived. But they should have caught us minutes after we ran, despite the fire, despite the horses. So you have to ask – why did they let us go?” 

Yennefer stalks over to him, resisting the urge to shake him, slap him; the evidence of his wounds is still too clear for it to feel fair. “You think they let us go?”

“I think that mage spent hours in my head and I don’t know what she was doing,” Jaskier says, steadily, blue eyes clear. He’s frightened, but not of her – or at least mostly not of her. “I think we found the person they were looking for, and maybe they can track us, maybe they can use us. I couldn’t let Geralt take the risk.” 

“So you put us at his mercy,” Yennefer spits. “I suppose you like that. Kneeling for him, waiting for him to do as he will.” 

To her surprise, Jaskier laughs, rich and full. “Oh, Yennefer,” he says, “when have you ever known _Geralt_ lord it over anyone?” 

“Aside from when he used a wish to tie me down?” she asks, and watches him swallow. 

“He’s not very smart when he’s trying to save people,” Jaskier responds evenly. “Me, you, any random villager with a sob story… would you rather be dead?” 

She doesn’t answer that, returning to sit on the bed, glaring down at the physical representation of Geralt’s hold on her. “All right,” she says, “let’s suppose that Fringilla can track you, can make you do something – that doesn’t apply to me.” 

Jaskier blinks, surprised. “Why not?”

“When would she have had time?” Yennefer waves a hand in the air. “I barely spent five minutes with the cow.” 

The room seems to grow colder as Jaskier stares. “Yennefer,” he says slowly, “how long do you think we were in the stables?”

“A day, of course,” she tells him, unease starting to creep through her. 

He shakes his head. “It was two. Two days. Don’t you remember? They took you away on the first day, me on the second. You were gone for hours. I think that’s how Fringilla knew about Geralt’s wish. I didn’t tell her; or at least I don’t think I did.” 

“You’re lying.” She feels her pulse rise. His face is even, and yet she can sense the pity he’s trying not to show. This is a trick. It must be. Maybe Fringilla is puppeting him, like the weak-minded fool he is, leaving her defenceless for whatever she plans to do next. 

And yet, if she were Fringilla, would she want to use a bard as her pawn, or a powerful sorceress? 

She shivers, and an image comes to her, a sensation: lying on the cold earth, eyes closed, head pounding, and gentle fingers running through her hair, grounding her as she shakes. 

It can’t be true. She would never be so pathetic, to lie with her head in Jaskier’s lap, clinging on to the scrap of comfort he offered. She rejects it. “You’re wrong,” she says, and closes her eyes so she doesn’t have to see his expression. 

“As you wish,” Jaskier says and falls silent. She hears him move about the room, haltingly, humming under his breath, and rolls over to lie on the bed, blocking her ears with the pillow. Being held prisoner by a witcher with good intentions may be an improvement on being held prisoner by a mage who wished to kill her, but she’s still a fucking _prisoner_. Her magic suppressed, her body constrained, only her mind at liberty and that hardly counts if she can’t think of a way out. 

Time passes excruciatingly slowly. Jaskier seems to be reading something, or possibly writing; she hears the rustle of pages. Eventually she interrupts him. “Bard.” 

“Yes?” 

“Did you swoon into Geralt’s arms when you got here? Tell him how much you missed him?” 

There’s a pause. She opens her eyes and sits up again, to see him blushing faintly. “Well,” he says, and licks his lips. “It was rather the other way round.” 

“You’re joking.”

“I assure you I’m not,” he says primly, then his eyes soften. “You should – ah, no, I won’t tell you what to do.”

“No,” she says sarcastically, “tell me. What should I do? What would you do, if you were me?”

“I’d give him a chance,” Jaskier says, pulling himself up, “the way he gave you a chance after you nearly got him killed in Rinde. It’s just – you both have centuries of living yet to do, and I suspect it’s a lonely road without friends. Or lovers. Or whatever.” 

“I’ll stick with whatever,” Yennefer tells him and Jaskier just laughs again. 

“Gods,” he says, “you’re as bad as each other. The most stubborn people I’ve ever met.” 

“Better to be stubborn than _weak_ ,” Yennefer spits and Jaskier sighs. 

“Fine,” he says. “I’m weak and a fool, that’s true enough. But I don’t have centuries left, so I’ll take my pleasures as they come and not worry too much about what other people think, if it’s all the same to you, my lady.” 

There’s something in the way he says _my lady_ – the way his voice lowers, the way he blinks – that makes her suddenly furious. She stands, moves to him, grasps his chin in one hand, metal hard against his throat. “And if I took my pleasure as I wanted,” she says, “what would you think of that?” 

“I’d think I was having a very strange dream,” Jaskier says, and she has a flash, again, of him holding her (tears in her eyes, her body aching, an empty sickness in her mind) and stops his infuriating mouth with hers. He makes a kind of startled squeak, and then relaxes, and she keeps kissing him, biting at his lips, feeling him shudder beneath her. 

He’s not Geralt. He’s not the one she wants to hurt. But he’s here and he wants her, and he’ll do.

It’s him who ends it, pushing her away, his face dazed, his mouth red. “That was unexpected,” he says, something odd in his tone. But then the door lock creaks, and she stumbles away from him, back to the bed. 

Geralt comes in. He looks well, dressed in plain black linen, leather trousers, no armour, only a knife at his belt. His face unguarded, smiling at her, the way he did their last morning. _You’re important to me_. She hates him. “Yennefer,” he says, “I’m glad you’re awake. How are you feeling?” 

She opens her mouth – not sure what she’s planning to say, she wants to lash out, she wants to rake her nails down his cheeks – but then she freezes. Her body held in space. 

And behind Geralt, Jaskier brings the poker from the fireplace down on his head. 

He crumples, his smile fading. Yennefer can only stare, frozen. Of course Fringilla would have set traps in both of them; she never did do things by halves. 

“I can’t believe you kissed the bard,” Jaskier says, contempt ringing in his voice. “Really, Yennefer, have you no standards at all?”

She looks at him. There are tears welling in his blank eyes, but his face is twisted in an all-too-familiar sneer. “Fringilla,” she tries to say, and feels the compulsion tighten. She cannot speak, cannot even swallow. 

“You were a little harder than the bard to manage,” Jaskier says conversationally. “But not _that_ hard.” He’s dropped to his knees and is rifling through Geralt’s pockets, turning to her with a small key. 

Yennefer’s legs move her forward. Her arms rise. Jaskier – Fringilla – unlocks the dimeritium bands and they fall to the floor, landing next to Geralt’s prone form. He’s on his back, eyes closed, forehead creased in vague confusion. _Geralt_ , she thinks, _I’m sorry_. 

Fringilla-in-Jaskier laughs, the scorn ringing oddly in the bard’s pleasant chuckle. He bends over and draws the knife from Geralt’s scabbard, then plunges it to the hilt high on the right side of Geralt’s chest. 

Both she and Jaskier jerk in shock. His mouth opens in the start of a cry and then his eyes roll back into his head, ending up collapsed in a heap by Geralt, unconscious. 

There’s a growing pool of blood under Geralt’s chest. As she watches, it reaches Jaskier, starts to turn his white shirt red. Her body leans over and her hand pulls the knife out, making the blood gush faster. 

_If you hurry_ , Fringilla says conversationally inside her head, _you might alert someone in time to save him_. 

And then she’s moving, stiff and disjointed, arms by her side and feet shuffling forward. The corridors she passes through are plain and cold, staircases steep and winding. There are voices, dim, within the halls, but she pays them no mind: too deep, too male. She needs the girl. 

Inside her mind she’s thrashing against the chains that bind her, throwing herself over and over against Fringilla’s hold. _Calm yourself, pig-girl_ , the whisper comes. _I might not be able to silence your thoughts the way I could with the bard, but I have your body_. 

Yennefer screams without sound; the presence inside her flinches but holds firm. Her juddering steps take her to what seems like an entrance hall, wide and echoing. She walks to the door, heaves it open, and passes out into a courtyard. The air is biting; frost lies on the cobblestones; in the distance snowy mountains rise into a clear blue sky. 

The girl in the courtyard has her long ashen hair tied into a braid. She’s wearing thick furs over linen trousers held up with string and warm winter boots. In one hand she holds a wooden practice sword, moving through a training form. She’s frowning in concentration but her body is relaxed, her movements graceful and strong. 

“Princess,” Fringilla says with Yennefer’s mouth. 

The princess stops and looks at Yennefer’s stiff body, at the dagger in her hand dripping blood on to the snow. She starts to back away, and Yennefer’s body flings itself forward, catching up to Cirilla and holding her tightly, one arm round her chest, the other holding the dagger at her throat. The princess thrashes, claws, and Yennefer feels distant pain, but it’s far away, of no concern. Her thoughts are muddy, the control on her making it hard to focus. Her eyes keep being caught by strange, inconsequential things: the sunlight glancing off the steel dagger, an eagle in the air above them, a drift of straw on the ground. 

“This isn’t you,” the princess gasps, but it’s easy to ignore her.

Inside her, Fringilla twists Yennefer’s hands to form a portal. 

Inside her, Yennefer laughs. 

_What_ — Fringilla thinks, and tries again to draw on Yennefer’s chaos, reaching out to pull life from the trees, the birds, even the girl in front of her. But it doesn’t matter; there’s no place for it to go, Yennefer’s magic as barren as the rest of her. 

_You lose_ , she thinks bitterly, triumphantly, as the princess trembles in her grasp. _Sodden took everything I had. You can’t use me to get her out of here._

 _I could kill you_ , Fringilla hisses, and the knife moves from Cirilla’s throat to Yennefer’s own. 

_Do it_ , Yennefer taunts. _What do I care, what have I got that’s worth keeping?_

And another voice cries out. Young, shrill, full of power beyond measure. 

The princess is screaming. 

Yennefer staggers back, caught in the power streaming from the girl, almost visible – swirls of white, like fog, that as it drifts highlights lines of chaos, bright red and jagged, twirling around Yennefer’s body, extending back into the castle to where Jaskier lies. The witchsight deepens and Yennefer sees a thin, golden thread wavering in the light, and knows beyond doubt that it’s the djinn wish made visible, while the other dark web is Fringilla’s magic. 

Her ears burn as the scream travels, the white fog overwhelming the scarlet, which shrivels and splinters. She finds herself tucked into a ball, her arms cradling her head, her body her own again, as the will of the child destroys everything in its path. She feels Fringilla rage in her head and then with a snap the rage is gone. 

Everything feels empty. She sways. And then remembers. “Geralt,” she says, and the princess takes her hand, pulls her back into the castle, through corridors, up stairs, into the room where she left him. Where Jaskier is kneeling, crying quietly, hands pressing down on the wound, while another witcher with a deep scar on one cheek helps Geralt drink a vial of potion. 

“He’ll be fine,” Yennefer tells Cirilla, who’s still shaking, tendrils of bright white fading around her. “We’ll all be fine.” And as she holds the girl tighter, and Jaskier looks up to smile shakily at her, she almost believes it. 

The one thing Yennefer always knew she didn’t want was a small life, a quiet life. 

Yet as the days pass at Kaer Morhen she starts to wonder whether that still holds true. Or rather, perhaps, whether the very notion is flawed. Because here she rests, and she walks the grounds, and teaches Ciri – trying, and often failing, to coax out her power, to even understand what her power _is_ – and sits and eats with four obnoxious witchers and one obnoxious bard, and it doesn’t feel small. It doesn’t feel small at all. 

The place inside where her chaos was flickers, still depleted, but the embers are alight and she thinks – hopes – trusts that it too will return to her, in time. 

Geralt gives her space, and she can’t tell if this is annoying or welcome. The wish that tied them is gone, fallen under the onslaught that is Ciri, and yet she still feels drawn to him. She misses him. And she can’t even blame a djinn for it. It’s infuriating, and until she gets over it, she keeps far away from him. She doubts either of them thinks they have anything to apologise for, and she doesn’t know quite how to get past that. 

He and Jaskier have clearly reconciled, though she supposes the bard forgave him before they even met again. She watches Jaskier casually pat Geralt’s arm, watches Geralt’s eyes follow Jaskier as he walks, and assumes they’re fucking again too. Not that it’s any of her business. 

She wants. She _wants_ and she doesn’t know what she wants, only that she can’t have it. The story of her life. 

One day, as she and Ciri are flicking through one of the dusty volumes in the witchers’ library, a history of spellcraft that Yennefer hopes might have some information about the source of the princess’s power, Ciri says, “Will you and Geralt ever make up?”

Yennefer pauses, faintly annoyed. “Who says we’re fighting?” 

“Jaskier told me,” Ciri says. _Of course he did_ , Yennefer thinks, _the meddling idiot_. “He said Geralt was a dick but Jaskier’s over it now and you’re not yet.” 

“The bard can’t hold a grudge to save his life,” Yennefer snaps, thinking of Jaskier in the stable. Her memories are still returning – Fringilla’s dark eyes, agony, blankness – but the one constant image she has is of the two of them huddled together, united by pain, broken down enough to find each other a comfort. _The enemy of my enemy_. Is he a friend now? Something like it, she supposes, and the thought is less irritating than she expects. “I, on the other hand, am less forgiving.” 

“I wish you’d be friends,” Ciri tells her. Her eyes are wide and tearful. Her lower lip wobbles slightly. Yennefer stares at her, then grins, shakes her head. 

“Too much, child,” she says. “The tears were good, but the lip was unlikely.” 

Ciri grins back, impish, suddenly looking younger than her years. “It worked on my last governess.” 

“I bet it did,” Yennefer says. “I’m made of sterner stuff.” 

“He misses you, though,” Ciri says. “And we’re in danger – I know you all say it’s not my fault, but still, we’re in danger and it is _because_ of me. So I think you should make it up with him before it’s too late.” 

Yennefer considers this. “Next time I’d try the logic before the emotional blackmail,” she says eventually. “It feels a bit like an anticlimax the other way round.” 

“ _Yennefer_ ,” Ciri pouts. “I’m not wrong.” 

“You’re meddling,” Yennefer says, and swats at her hand. “Stop it. Go back to your reading. Leave my relationship with Geralt to me.” 

“So you do _have_ a relationship,” Ciri says triumphantly, then ducks her head back to her book when she sees Yennefer’s face, a little smile on her lips. Smart girl. Smart, annoying girl. Yennefer would kill for her, and rather suspects she’ll have to. 

Nothing changes. The quiet, calm days continue. She finds Geralt and Jaskier lounging together in front of the fire, one evening, Geralt’s head in Jaskier’s lap, Jaskier’s hands tangled in Geralt’s hair, and is taken aback by the desire that hits her. To have all that strength at her disposal, to have that trust. 

Geralt did trust her, but he hurt her and she hurt him and she no longer knows what they are to each other, besides united in their fierce love for Ciri. She turns her head away till she can get her feelings back under control, her face blank. But Jaskier’s eyes are on her when she looks back, and she’s not sure who she’s fooling. 

She could go to Geralt, and he would take her back, but she doesn’t want to be taken back. She wants to take. She wants. She _wants_. But she doesn’t know how to get it. 

One afternoon, after lunch, she makes her way up to her chamber. Ciri is training with Lambert – “go easy on the bombs,” Geralt had called after them, and Yennefer didn’t ask. She doesn’t know where he and Jaskier have got to, though she has her suspicions. 

She’s wrong, though, because when she opens the door to her room she finds Jaskier sitting on the edge of the bed, waiting for her. Between his legs, Geralt is kneeling, naked, his head resting on Jaskier’s thigh. 

Yennefer closes the door quietly. She breathes. She meets Jaskier’s eyes, sees a challenge there, a request. 

“He’s not yours to give to me,” she says. 

“He can give himself,” Jaskier says. “I just got bored waiting for him to offer, for you to ask. You’re your own worst enemy too, woman.” He tightens his grip in Geralt’s hair. “Tell her, love.” 

“Yenn,” Geralt whispers. “Please…” 

“And what’s your role in this, bard?” Yennefer asks. She stalks over to the bed and takes his chin in her hand, tips his head back, ignoring Geralt at her feet. He stares at her hungrily. 

“Whatever you want,” he says. “I could go. I could watch. I could participate.” He shrugs. “As it pleases you, my lady.” 

She shivers, runs a nail down his cheek, not quite hard enough to scratch the skin, and his eyes fall closed. He’s very pretty, all soft silks covering the steel inside. The opposite of Geralt. No wonder they fit together so well. “Strip,” she orders, and watches delight suffuse his face. He shifts Geralt’s head and stands, moving away. 

Geralt looks up at her, and picks something up from the floor, offering them to her: two metal bands, a key. The dimeritium he bound her in. 

“Yes,” she says. And then, “good boy,” to see him glow and then scowl at the praise. He places the bands round his wrists and she locks them, kisses his flesh above and below, tastes the metal. 

“Yenn,” he says again, worshipful, relieved. It’s better than any apology he could give in words.

“On the bed,” she tells him, “on your back,” and he goes, legs falling wide, cock already pointed at the ceiling. She draws on the sparks of her chaos to conjure ties to hold him to the headboard, a blindfold for his eyes, so that all those heightened senses will be focused on their touch. It’s wasteful but she can’t think of a better use for her magic in this moment. His whole body untenses for her, just as it used to when they played this game before. 

“That’s a neat trick,” Jaskier says behind her. He’s naked now too, half-hard, still too thin. She strokes his surprisingly hairy chest appreciatively and he goes to his knees on the floor, looking up, smiling, a little too smug. 

“Jaskier, may I gag you?” she asks, pushing one finger down on his tongue and feeling him go loose under her touch. 

“Mmm,” he says, “please,” and with the last ember of her power she creates a piece of silk, blue to match his eyes, and uses it to stop his mouth, kissing his lips as he moans. 

“Would you like to fuck Geralt?” she asks him, and he nods enthusiastically; on the bed, Geralt sighs and relaxes even further. Yennefer goes to lie next to him, one hand tracing idle patterns on his chest, the other pressed against her sex, feeling warmth build inside her. 

Jaskier kneels on the end of the bed, nudging Geralt’s legs further apart, reaching beneath him to stroke at his entrance. He has a small bottle of oil in one hand and slicks up a finger to press it in. Yennefer props herself up on an elbow to watch, pulling up her skirts so she can slip a finger into her underwear and circle her clit. Her wetness grows as Jaskier works on Geralt, while Geralt shudders, mouth open, panting quietly. 

She’s two fingers deep in herself by the time Jaskier lifts Geralt’s legs up and starts to fuck into him. She moves, then, kneeling to straddle Geralt’s chest, her skirts falling over him as she ruts, pressing silk and lace and flesh against his skin. He’s not quiet anymore. He calls her name, and Jaskier’s, and she rocks to the rhythm of Jaskier’s thrusts, her hands on Jaskier’s shoulders, his eyes on her, worshipful and hungry. 

She leans forward to kiss his mouth over the gag, his neck, his nipples, then braces herself with one hand on his chest and the other reaching down to circle his cock where it meets Geralt’s body. His cry is choked; she tightens her hold then lets him go. 

“Yenn,” Geralt says, “Yenn, Yenn, Yenn.” He’s straining against his bonds, sweating and shaking. She turns herself around, her back against Jaskier’s chest; the bard brings one hand round to cup her breast and she lifts up and sinks slowly down on Geralt’s cock. 

“Good boy,” she says, then corrects herself: “my good, good boys.” Jaskier groans and fucks harder as she lets his movements jolt her up and down on Geralt’s cock, letting the waves of pleasure build until they crash down through her, and she lifts her head back and lets out a wild cry. 

As if the sound made it happen Jaskier shudders and comes behind her; Geralt clenches and comes inside her. 

She floats. Jaskier lets Geralt’s legs down and then drapes himself against her back, moving his hand from her nipple to her clit, stroking until she climaxes again, Geralt’s cock still warm inside her body. 

She manages to take the blindfold off Geralt, release the spell holding his hands to the wall. His golden eyes contain only warmth, only the desire to please, not to keep, not to own. Jaskier gently shifts her off Geralt – he’s taken the gag out; she makes a note to punish him for that later, which is probably why he did it – and lays her down between them on the bed. 

“Goddess,” he says reverently. “Melitele’s sacred cunt.” She puts a finger to his lips and he nips at it, smiling, pleased with himself, but she is in a good enough mood to allow it. 

Her head is on Geralt’s chest, and his arm encircles her, strong and close. Jaskier embraces her too; she’s held between them, still fully clothed, both powerful and loved.

She wants this, she realises, drifting off to sleep. It’s not everything she wants – she knows herself well enough to know that nothing ever will be, not really – but it will do for now.

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to get this into 2020 but didn't quite make it. Still, it marks nearly 200,000 words in less than a year and the first time I've ever posted anything I've written - which I wouldn't have done without all the lovely kudos and comments from this insanely fun fandom. Thank you, and I hope 2021 brings new opportunities and better things for all of us.


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